If there was a broken-record knock against electronic music in the last decade, it's that it all sounded the same. But there was some truth to the charge. During the mid-aughts minimal implosion, a majority of electronic music did sound the same, with the banal bleeps of Minus leading the charge towards uniformity. But today you'd have to be bullheaded to maintain this conviction. Fully realized genres cycle through a period of emergence, boom, and backlash before you can say "Deadmau-five." Most recently, the genre boundary lines have blurred to a near-dizzying degree, perhaps never more so than on this debut LP from Daniel Martin-McCormick. One could go as far as to label it genre defining, but let's not. As a member of SF-bred psych outfit Mi Ami, the producer has a pedigree in noise. And there certainly are noises here — ranging from wolf howls to chopped Whitney Houston samples. When it comes to noise, however, this disc is more accurately defined by the lack thereof. Each of the five tracks exudes an initially familiar motif — like the exultant rave synthline on "First Wave" — before being warped with an array of lops and floods, defying reminiscence at every turn. It'll inevitably be pigeonholed as post-house or something equally asinine, but for now, it exists without definition, and for that we can be grateful.

Various Artists | Casual Victim Pile: Austin 2010 The notion that regional musical flavors exist independently in American cities is quickly becoming an archaic truism, seeing as how the world really is a stage these days, at least in the digital sense.

Avi Buffalo | Avi Buffalo Look, I get it: the last thing we need right now is yet another band who can be described as “sun-baked,” “reverb-soaked,” or even just “psychedelic.” But Avi Buffalo (I know! An animal name to boot!) are worth your attention for a few reasons.

Die Antwoord | Ten$ion Moreso than any "controversially-lipped" chanteuse (to borrow from one of Lana Del Rey's many observers), South African rap/rave/meme/satire/knuckleheads Die Antwoord beg the question:"Is that all there is?"

Cotton Mather | Kontiki [Deluxe Edition] When it was released in 1997, Cotton Mather's sophomore album racked up glowing critical huzzahs across the pond (not to mention big-ups from Oasis), yet dudded here in the States.